Q: I bought the Polk Audio RM7200 5.1 set back in 2002 and love the sound, but have always been frustrated when watching movies because dialogue is very soft and action scenes are super loud. I have to keep the remote in my hand to jog the volume up and down every few minutes to be able to hear dialogue without waking my sleeping kids two floors up.

I have a decent Onkyo receiver with digital input that I purchased around the same time as my speakers. I’ve experimented with turning the center speaker volume to max and lowering the others, and tried both the “late night” and “cinema filter” modes, but nothing helps. It’s so bad that for the last few years I’ve just left the satellite speakers and receiver disconnected and am using the crappy soundbar that came with my Pioneer Kuro Elite TV with a cable running directly to the subwoofer. It’s not surround, but at least I’m not playing sound mixer while watching movies.

I’ve been tempted to just buy a new system, but maybe I just need a more modern receiver? Or maybe there’s something even simpler? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

A: In this case, the problem isn’t with the speakers themselves, but with the signals coming to them. I’ve run into this same issue when trying to watch movies at night: Turn the volume down so explosions are quiet, and dialogue is impossible to hear in some cases. This is because films are created with a reference level for most sounds, but allow for dynamic swings of up to 20 decibels louder. If you adjust the volume down for these swings, it’s hard to hear the regular sounds. I don’t know which specific Onkyo receiver you have, but more recent receivers include features to help with this.

Each company calls it something different, so I’ll focus on receivers that use Audyssey room correction because they’re the most common. For these, you can enable Audyssey Dynamic Volume and Dynamic EQ. Our receiver pick, the Denon AVR-S710W, features both of these technologies. These features compress that dynamic range to make the sounds coming from your speakers closer to the same volume level you have set. At nighttime, it means regular talking, shouting, and whispers will be closer in level and easier to understand. You’ll lose some of that impact from explosions and other loud effects, but you can always disable these settings during the daytime.

Without knowing your exact receiver model, it sounds like you’ve done what you can to try to make it work for you, but perhaps you have these options hiding in your settings as well. If not, an updated receiver that adds these, or a vocals-enhancement setting can probably remedy the issue.

—Chris Heinonen

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